1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a mechanism whereby the context of user activity can be used to tailor the ambient information system.
2. Introduction
Mobile information delivery applications such as SCREEN3 and widgets are gaining popularity for their ability to display ambient information to a user at times when his device is idle, that is when no user-interactive application is running. These applications are useful not only for delivering informational content to the user, example news-feeds, but also for providing regular information updates about the user's community, example music and discussion groups, or for delivering advertisements based on the user's defined interests. In all cases, the real value to the content provider occurs only when the user views a particular item and clicks through to receive more information and download richer content.
Unfortunately, mobile devices have limited display real estate for showing informational content to the user. As a result, applications resort to one of two approaches—a serial consumption experience where information items are displayed and consumed in sequence, and a parallel consumption model where information items are displayed concurrently and consumed simultaneously. Serial consumption usually involves scrolling models—all items are displayed in a carousel format looping sequentially through all available items with only a few items visible to the user at any given point in time. On the other hand, parallel consumption models handle the scarcity of display real estate by placing the decision-making burden on the user. Users must decide which widgets to display in order to make best use of their limited display.
In either case, items must now compete for face-time with the user, given only limited opportunities to grab the user's attention. This leads to interesting situations where item of no interest are shown at an opportune time and items of interest may be shown at un-opportune time. Further, items may be displayed at the wrong time and in the wrong context for the user to properly interact with the item. For example, the user may be interested in knowing if any of his friends have beaten his high score in Tetris (ambient information on a gaming community channel or a gaming presence widget). However, this information is of no use to a user if it is displayed at a time when the user is in a meeting. Instead, if the information was shown to the user in his free time (on his rail commute home), this provides an opportunity for him to respond by launching Tetris to try and reclaim his high score ranking.
Thus, the basic problem is that of information overload with limited opportunities for information display to the user. Note that while we have defined the problem with focus on mobile devices, a similar issue also applies to ambient information systems for desktops such as Apple Dashboard and Yahoo Konfabulator. Users often install more widgets than are “active” on the display at any given time—furthermore, they can also elect to “hide” some subset of active displays in order to reduce information overload and desktop clutter. The key difference is that desktop displays are passive awareness interfaces always visible in the user's periphery while mobile displays are interstitial awareness interfaces only viewed in between user activities—hence desktop systems provide more opportunities to attract the user's attention.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for mechanism that can display the right information to the user at the right time to achieve impact.